Exceptional Times, Exceptional Action: Opening Remarks for Spring Meetings Press Conference

IMF News, April 15, 2020

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Canonical URL: Exceptional Times, Exceptional Action: Opening Remarks for Spring Meetings Press Conference

Context: Virtual 2020 Spring Meetings; Washington, DC; April 15, 2020. As prepared for delivery by Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director.
Health and human impact:
- Covid-19 is causing tragic loss of life and measures to fight it have "turned our world upside down—affecting billions of people and stopping economies in their tracks."
- Quote framing the moment: “April is the cruelest month.”
Baseline macroeconomic scenario and uncertainty:
- Project global growth to fall to -3 percent this year.
- Project a partial recovery in 2021, with growth expected at 5.8 per cent.
- Acknowledgement that the baseline could get much worse depending on many variable factors, including the depth and duration of the pandemic.
Overarching message: Despite extraordinary uncertainty, a path forward can be charted through coordinated policy action now.

Three priorities:
- (1) First—protect lives.
- Continue essential containment measures and prioritize health spending.
- Refrain from export controls on medical supplies and food.
- (2) Second—protect livelihoods.
- Prevent liquidity pressures from turning into solvency problems.
- Create lifelines for households and businesses: cash transfers, credit guarantees, adjustments to loan terms.
- Ensure a financial system that continues to function under pressure; monetary stimulus and liquidity facilities are indispensable.
- (3) Third—plan for recovery.
- Reduce risk of irreversible economic scarring through policy action now.
- As stabilization occurs, coordinated fiscal stimulus will be needed to boost demand and restore growth.
- IMF support for post-crisis challenges: debt vulnerabilities, bankruptcies, unemployment, and economic inequality.
Equity and support for constrained countries:
- Countries with limited resources will need more support; many emerging markets and low-income nations have weaker health systems.
- International community should increase funding and provide debt service relief to create space for urgent health spending and mitigate economic impact.
- Appeal for global solidarity and coordinated international efforts: "anyone’s fight against the virus is everyone’s fight."

Capacity and actions:
- IMF lending capacity: $1 trillion.
- Responding to unprecedented calls for emergency financing from more than 100 countries.
- Doubled access to emergency facilities to meet expected demand of about $100 billion in financing.
- Lending programs approved at record speed for over 20 countries, with many more to come.
New and adjusted instruments:
- Executive Board discussing a new short-term liquidity line—for countries with strong economic fundamentals.
- Membership exploring additional tools, including how to best use the SDR.
- Revamped Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) to provide immediate debt relief on IMF obligations to low-income countries affected by the crisis.
- Executive Board has approved assistance to 25 countries.
- Working with donors to almost triple the CCRT from $500 million to $1.4 billion to extend the duration of relief.
- Call, together with the G20, the World Bank and many others, for a standstill of debt service to official bilateral creditors for the world’s poorest countries.
Governance engagement:
- When Governors of the IMFC meet, endorsement will be sought for a concrete package of measures that can be deployed quickly.

Global growth projection: -3 percent (this year).
Global growth projection: 5.8 per cent (2021, partial recovery).
Portfolio outflows: more than $100 billion in just the past two months.
External financing needs: estimated to be in the trillions of dollars.
Fiscal actions deployed by many countries: about $8 trillion.
Liquidity injections by central banks: over $6 trillion.
IMF membership: 189 member countries.
IMF lending capacity: $1 trillion.
Expected demand for emergency financing: about $100 billion.
Emergency financing access: doubled.
Lending programs approved at record speed for over 20 countries.
CCRT current level and target: from $500 million to $1.4 billion (working to almost triple).
CCRT assistance approved to 25 countries.

Urgent call to act now and act together: "In this time of crisis, we must remember that this too shall pass. We will get through this. How well and quickly we get through it depends on us acting now—and acting together."
Closing emphasis: "These are exceptional times; we need exceptional action."

Kristalina Georgieva, "Exceptional Times, Exceptional Action: Opening Remarks for Spring Meetings Press Conference", April 15, 2020.